seconds, but feels like days. I shiver, because it’s as though he’s stripped away my towel and swimsuit with his eyes. Then he gives a subtle shake of his head, and I can sense his disgust from three floors away. He shoves off the railing and is gone before I can remember to breathe again.
All the good feels from our photo session drain out of me, and I swallow around my now-tight throat.
“Come on T-squared,” Colin calls out. “Time’s a wastin’.” I breathe deeply and put one foot in front of the other. Lush is my band. I need to focus on them, not the brooding, confusing, dangerous guy on the third floor. Even though he makes my insides do things they’ve never done before. Not even when I’m playing music.
Blaze
I walk in off the balcony of my hotel room, head swimming with images of Tully in those little furry boots and not much else, the Lush guys all wrapped around her like fucking snakes. I’ve done enough photo shoots to know that was the money shot. They’ll use some of the others on the inside with the article, but that one, that was the cover, and it’ll make her famous faster than twenty concerts and an album will. I don’t know who came up with the concept, but whoever it was, is a fucking genius. It’ll make her a star.
And from everything I’m seeing and hearing, the fame won’t be misplaced. She’s the real deal—talented, beautiful, charismatic. Even though she’s prickly a lot of the time, you can’t help but be drawn to her. The only problem is that it’s not just my eyes that are drawn to her. My dick is leading the charge, and it’s fucking with my head—the other head.
I wanted to leap off my balcony and pry Lush off of her, make all those onlookers close their eyes so that I was the only one seeing all that pearlescent skin, those inky locks, the curves that are ripe and full and begging for my hands and my mouth. It’s like Tully O’Roark is a giant buffet and I’m a starving man. Seeing her, talking to her, it gives me a rush that reminds me a bit of the rush I got the first time I touched a guitar—or the first time I snorted a line of coke. The rush I get every time I think about the look on my old man’s face when he sees me onstage at his precious fucking Super Bowl.
Thoughts of the Super Bowl help move the focus from my pants to my business. I flip open my laptop and pull up the browser tab I was watching earlier before the commotion of the photo shoot. It’s Lush’s performance at the Super Bowl five years ago, and I’m watching it to memorize every little detail—everything they did right, and most importantly, everything they did wrong. Because if I’m going to beat them for this year’s slot I’ve got to understand their game as well as I do my own. The best defense is a good offense. My dad hammered that into my head from the time I was old enough to know what defense and offense were, and it applies in most things in life, not just football.
My phone buzzes and I absentmindedly glance at the screen.
DP-PI: I’ve got some info that I think you’ll want to hear.
I pause the video and hit “callback”.
“You see my text?” the guy on the other end asks.
“Yeah. What do you have for me?” I look longingly at the minibar across the room. I’ll admit it, I had them remove all the booze before I checked in. But damn, every time I talk to this guy my stomach churns a little, and I wish for a quick shot of something to settle it.
“It looks like Walsh Clark hasn’t had as easy a time of the recovery as everyone’s been led to believe.”
“Yeah?” My eyes dart to the minibar again. Fuck.
I can hear the guy clicking away on a keyboard while he talks. “Seems that when he was living down in Texas at that halfway house he fell off the wagon and got kicked out. He didn’t check back into rehab that time, but since then he not only attends three to four AA meetings a week, but the band has guys in the crew whose only job is to keep an
All the good feels from our photo session drain out of me, and I swallow around my now-tight throat.
“Come on T-squared,” Colin calls out. “Time’s a wastin’.” I breathe deeply and put one foot in front of the other. Lush is my band. I need to focus on them, not the brooding, confusing, dangerous guy on the third floor. Even though he makes my insides do things they’ve never done before. Not even when I’m playing music.
Blaze
I walk in off the balcony of my hotel room, head swimming with images of Tully in those little furry boots and not much else, the Lush guys all wrapped around her like fucking snakes. I’ve done enough photo shoots to know that was the money shot. They’ll use some of the others on the inside with the article, but that one, that was the cover, and it’ll make her famous faster than twenty concerts and an album will. I don’t know who came up with the concept, but whoever it was, is a fucking genius. It’ll make her a star.
And from everything I’m seeing and hearing, the fame won’t be misplaced. She’s the real deal—talented, beautiful, charismatic. Even though she’s prickly a lot of the time, you can’t help but be drawn to her. The only problem is that it’s not just my eyes that are drawn to her. My dick is leading the charge, and it’s fucking with my head—the other head.
I wanted to leap off my balcony and pry Lush off of her, make all those onlookers close their eyes so that I was the only one seeing all that pearlescent skin, those inky locks, the curves that are ripe and full and begging for my hands and my mouth. It’s like Tully O’Roark is a giant buffet and I’m a starving man. Seeing her, talking to her, it gives me a rush that reminds me a bit of the rush I got the first time I touched a guitar—or the first time I snorted a line of coke. The rush I get every time I think about the look on my old man’s face when he sees me onstage at his precious fucking Super Bowl.
Thoughts of the Super Bowl help move the focus from my pants to my business. I flip open my laptop and pull up the browser tab I was watching earlier before the commotion of the photo shoot. It’s Lush’s performance at the Super Bowl five years ago, and I’m watching it to memorize every little detail—everything they did right, and most importantly, everything they did wrong. Because if I’m going to beat them for this year’s slot I’ve got to understand their game as well as I do my own. The best defense is a good offense. My dad hammered that into my head from the time I was old enough to know what defense and offense were, and it applies in most things in life, not just football.
My phone buzzes and I absentmindedly glance at the screen.
DP-PI: I’ve got some info that I think you’ll want to hear.
I pause the video and hit “callback”.
“You see my text?” the guy on the other end asks.
“Yeah. What do you have for me?” I look longingly at the minibar across the room. I’ll admit it, I had them remove all the booze before I checked in. But damn, every time I talk to this guy my stomach churns a little, and I wish for a quick shot of something to settle it.
“It looks like Walsh Clark hasn’t had as easy a time of the recovery as everyone’s been led to believe.”
“Yeah?” My eyes dart to the minibar again. Fuck.
I can hear the guy clicking away on a keyboard while he talks. “Seems that when he was living down in Texas at that halfway house he fell off the wagon and got kicked out. He didn’t check back into rehab that time, but since then he not only attends three to four AA meetings a week, but the band has guys in the crew whose only job is to keep an
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